Infinity Redemption
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: Imagine a world where you are in possession of a power unlike anything you could ever dream possible, and that there are five others you could gain. The power to make the impossible possible and turn despair into hope. Enter Shinji Ikari, who receives the Space Stone from his mother, and must choose for himself whether or not to go after the other stones to obtain hope for all.
1. Infinity Redemption

Creation began on 10-28-18

Creation ended on 10-30-18

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Infinity Redemption

A/N: StraightEdgeWingEpyon inspired me to write this after reading the latest chapter of his _Kingdom Hidden in the Clouds_ story. Maybe some good can come of it. May be a combination of both anime and manga, but mostly manga-based.

 _"…Please, sensei,"_ Kozo Fuyutsuki recalled the last request of Yui Ikari a week prior to the failed activation test with Unit-01 (Unit-00 back then) as he heard Shinji had awoken from the aftermath of the Third Angel attack, _"no matter what happens, make sure Shinji gets this pendant. He'll understand in his own time."_

The pendant in question, a blue-colored Taoist emblem, was something that Yui had valued ever since she got it, but never elaborated on why, or even why she wanted to make sure Shinji got it after the activation experiment with the Eva. But Fuyutsuki, staying true to his promise to Yui, made sure he gave Shinji the pendant.

" _Your mother wanted me to make sure that you got her pendant after what happened today, Shinji,"_ he told the toddler Shinji shortly after the failed test.

" _What happened to her?"_ He had asked him, putting the pendant around his neck. _"Where is she?"_

But Fuyutsuki couldn't answer his question, despite wanting to explain why his mother wouldn't be coming home, anymore.

 _Even after all these years, he still wears it,_ he thought, noticing that Shinji had still been wearing the pendant around his neck. _I wonder if he ever found out why Yui wanted him to have it._

-x-

 _"…I honestly don't care what happens to you when you meet your father,"_ Shinji recalled his aunt telling him the day he received a letter from his father telling him to come to Tokyo-3, _"just don't come back here afterwards."_

That was pretty much her way of telling him to never come back to her house, no matter what happened with his father. Of course, Shinji knew he couldn't go back, even if he wanted to; the fact that he never felt welcomed by his aunt and her family to begin with after being sent to live with them by his father left Shinji discontent with his relatives and unable to connect with them socially. He never felt like he belonged to anyplace or any group of people, and whenever people did speak of him, all they really did was bring up the rumors of how his mother died in a lab accident caused by his father, in their own way rejecting him out of disgust, and they didn't even know him.

" _Why did she leave you nothing but that pendant, anyway?"_

" _It was Mommy's,"_ he remembered telling his aunt. _"She wanted me to have it, no matter what happened to her."_

But the truth about the pendant was beyond Shinji's knowledge. He only knew that it belonged to her, but not any significance behind it. And yet, more than half of the time, he'd rather be anywhere else than surrounded by people that didn't want anything to do with him socially. Sometimes, he'd dream of places beyond the country, beyond the pictures of cities and wilderness that he only knew about from old books. It was through these dreams that he felt he could escape from this pitiful existence he was dealt with because of his family.

"… _Sometimes, I think he'd go missing for a few hours or just a few minutes,"_ he recalled his cousin saying one time, referring to a time in his childhood where Shinji…just didn't seem to be there…when he was awake, but nobody ever believed in this assumption.

 _Why did you want me to have this, Mother?_ He wondered, looking at his pendant. _What is so special about it that you left it to me?_

-x-

"…So, they don't want to live together?" Ritsuko Akagi questioned Makoto Hyuga in Central Dogma, overhearing that Shinji declined the idea of living with his father.

"It gets worse," Hyuga informed her, "he's refused to continue piloting the Eva. He just wants to leave the city."

"But…it's not like he can actually go back to his aunt and uncle's, can he?"

"Why couldn't he?"

"He was told never to come back by his own aunt."

"So, then, he's got nowhere else to go? What, he either pilots the Eva or lives on the streets?"

"More or less, he got dealt a bad hand."

"The worst hand imaginable. What is he supposed to do if he can't go back and doesn't want to pilot the Eva again?"

"His options are few to nonexistent."

-x-

Nothing was what he had. Shinji Ikari was a young man that had nothing. Maybe that was a lousy way to put up with the present, but there was no way he'd pilot the Eva again. Nobody told him that he'd feel pain from this synchronization that was to pair him with the cybernetic behemoth or even bothered to warn him that he could end up getting killed if he could feel like his arm was snapped to the bone.

As he walked down the street, his pendant started glowing; there were times in the past where it would do this, but nothing ever really happened…and there were times he felt like he was somewhere else, but he just chalked it up to random dreams.

"What in the Hell am I supposed to do now?" He uttered, taking off his pendant and holding it in his left hand. "I can't go back to my aunt's, not that I want to, I can't stay here, and all I have is pocket change and a Taoist pendant! Is there something I'm supposed to do? Just give me a hint or something, a sign that I'm meant for something better than this dismal lack of a life I have!"

The pendant glowed brighter and then blinded him.

"Aaaahh!" He yelled.

-x-

"What do you mean, he went missing?" Misato asked Shigeru; although Shinji wasn't really a NERV concern, that didn't stop the woman from worrying about his current situation.

"About eight minutes ago, he just disappeared on the streets," he explained. "I mean, he just…literally dropped off the map. Someone claimed to see him just vanish in a blue light after yelling something."

"Just a crazy, homeless guy looking for attention to get fast cash to buy drugs, perhaps?"

"Not unless the crazy, homeless guy was a twenty-one-year-old woman babysitting her best friend's four-year-old kid and taking him home after taking him to the park, and she swears she saw him disappear in blue light. She wasn't on drugs or anything."

"So, he disappears…and we have no means to find him or even communicate with him. Where could he have possibly gone?"

Even though it wasn't their concern, the fact that Shinji just disappeared after leaving NERV the day after an Angel attacked…was something that seemed like it was the paramilitary agency's fault. Their fault, meaning they had to rectify it.

-x-

It felt like he was surrounded by water, but he felt air entering and escaping his lungs. And the water itself was greenish instead of blue. There wasn't a sign of any aquatic life nearby.

"Where…am I?" Shinji asked.

"You are nowhere…and everywhere," a voice responded to him.

"What?"

"You're adrift in the abyss, here, there, everywhere. Wherever you think you are, you are…and wherever you think you're not, you still are. You've been waited on for many years, bearer of the Spirit of Space."

"The Spirit of Space?"

"The blue stone you wear around your neck."

Shinji looked at the pendant around his neck, seeing it glow dimly, but no longer looking like a Taoist symbol, but resembling a blue oval, smooth and beautiful.

"Those chosen to bear it are bestowed the freedom to go anywhere they desire," the voice told him.

"But…this belonged to my mother before she died. A man gave it to me, said she wanted me to have it. It's…all I have of her."

"Your mother knew of its power…but never could wield it. Anyone can possess it, but only those chosen by it or the others members of the Six Remnants can use them. But only those chosen by any of the Six Remnants…can possess the other five for their own benevolence."

"There are five others?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes, please."

"Very well, then. A long time ago, before the universe ever lived for even a second, there existed these four beings that gave birth to six singularities, each one representing a different aspect of the universe. When the Big Bang came and went, the four beings were lost to the abyss of existence…and the six singularities they brought into being were damaged, maimed, shattered, scattered and gathered back together over time into salvaged relics. From then on, they were called many names across many different races: The Spirits of the Six Singularities, Infinity Stones, Infinity Gems, the Souls of the Cosmos, the Absolution Crystals and so on. Each of the singularities can only be wielded by individuals with a heightened degree of resilience or were chosen by them of their own accord. They learn from their time with each possessor and apart to them as best they can. Controlling the universal aspects of Reality, Power, Mind, Soul, Time and Space, when brought together, they can make anything possible within the confines of the universe they reside in. At one point, one being that wasn't chosen by any of the six wielded them in a way that was both extremely cruel and unjustifiable. He used them to wipe out half of all life that existed in the universe. While his vile act was undone by those that remained, the six singularities, learning from the experience, realized that if anyone just as dangerous as he was were to repeat such an act, it would be just as worse than before, so they abandoned the universe they once resided in…and ended up in yours. While they ended up on your world, they hid away from each other in the hopes of never being brought together again unless it was for a benevolent purpose, saving lives or a planet, not ending them for one reason or another. That is the past and history of the six singularities."

So, there were six of these relics in total, each with a different power, representing a different aspect of the universe…and Shinji possessed the one representing space. When all six were brought together, anything was possible, even the impossible. They had been used once before to wipe out half of the universe and were used to undo that disaster…and they were capable of a degree of sentience, able to decide whether or not any one person was permitted to use their powers for their own benefit.

"Who are you?" Shinji then asked.

"I…am the Space Singularity," the voice answered.

"The…consciousness of the Space Stone?"

"I am."

"Why me? I mean…why was I chosen to wield the stone? Surely, there are those more qualified than myself out there."

"True, but none more deserving than you that fit the requisite for being able to hold the stone without repercussions to themselves. There are those that have known power for so long, they have lost any respect for it, and there have been those that have never had any measure of power that deserve to see where it will take them, to be tested, measured by their worthiness, to be judged by how they use it, whether it's to help others or harm them. It's usually the weakest of people that understand the true value of power…because they demonstrate the basic strengths of their kind. So…Shinji Ikari of the Space Stone…my most important question to you right now is this: If you could go anywhere in the universe, and you can go anywhere in the universe, where would you like to go?"

Shinji was at a loss for words right now, and not because of the fact that his pendant was asking him such a question. He was at a loss because it was the first time anyone had ever asked him what he wanted instead of what they thought he needed. Nobody had ever asked him before, so he never could speak his mind on his desires. He could go anywhere he wanted in the universe…and he knew where he wanted to try going to first.

"I know my mother is gone, but…can I go to where she is, please?" He asked the Space Singularity.

"Just because place like Heaven and Hell are domains of the afterlife, it doesn't mean they're not within the same universe as Earth is," it explained to the boy. "It just means they're not easy to reach while alive…but not for you. Yes, you can go to where she is, wherever she is."

-x-

"…So," uttered a female voice within a small building that served as a home for at least seventy-seven orphans of Second Impact, as an elderly woman was putting a little girl to sleep, "someone else has a member of the Infinity Stones just like I do."

In her sixties, her face wrinkled, dressed in white, wearing prayer beads with one of them colored orange on her left arm, she hadn't been a stranger to loss, but was weary of the loss of any more children to the ravages of sickness and war; she had to watch as another little boy whose parents were snatched away two years ago for seeking asylum in another country succumb to an illness he had that was treatable…but the medical practitioners had put profits over patients, letting them die if they couldn't pay for treatment when, as healers, it was their duty under the divine authority to give aid to those in need above their own desires or the authority of others. It was only through the prayer beads she had received from the previous mother superior that she was able to see the dying off to the other side and let them know that their lives, however small, however insignificant, had meaning to those that cared and would be waiting for them. But it was also because of the prayer beads that she knew of the other five stones that could provide more than the sum of their numbers…but she desired none of them beyond the one she had to provide some measure of relief. To have the power to do anything…was as intoxicating as it was unlimited in its ability to provide whatever was needed, whatever was desired by the heart of the one that obtained it.

"Will he come for this one, though?" She wondered, unafraid of the possibility of any of the other bearers coming for her stone.

To be continued…

A/N: Well, here is the first of a line of chapters in which I have no clue if I'll even continue in due time, but I'd like to see where it goes. I gave Shinji the Space Stone because he's someone that deserves to be free from others, and now has the freedom to go wherever he chooses, and the mystery woman the Soul Stone due to how those of holiness and servitude to a higher authority want only to see suffering end. Whether or not other people will have possession of the other four or they're yet to be discovered will depend upon how the future unfolds. Peace.


	2. I need you

Creation began on 02-20-18

Creation ended on 02-22-19

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Infinity Redemption: I need you

A/N: After checking the poll related to the story a few times, I've decided that this story will be part of my _Different from You_ series. Get ready for the continuation.

Stepping out of the cosmic-like portal that had opened for him, Shinji Ikari had stepped out onto the ruins of Tokyo. He wasn't feeling as cheerful as he had initially been when he thought of using the newfound power he was gifted to see his mother, but he had reason to be feeling this way. If there was truly such a place as Heaven, it wasn't where she was at, and it wasn't Hell, but it might as well have been Hell. It was Limbo, a purgatory realm that she herself had condemned her soul to. And the worst thing of it…was that she did it deliberately, knowing full well that it would be the worst thing she would ever do.

 _She let herself get killed on purpose all those years ago,_ he thought, finding a large piece of debris to sit on. _She believed she was doing the right thing by doing so…but…it wasn't right at all, what she did._

" _Nothing our families did to us was right, Shinji,"_ he recalled the only friend he ever had tell him last year when they both experienced the worst feeling they would never forgive their families for inflicting upon. _"I can't stay at that house any longer. I can't…I can't bear to be reminded of what was done to me, to us. Forgive me, Shinji, but I need to get out of this place and be elsewhere. Will you come with me?"_

What pained him most about that request…was that, as much as he wanted to go, to leave his aunt and uncle's house, to get away from the hurt he had been feeling, he hadn't been strong enough to accept the offer that was being given to him at that time. He had been a coward because he stayed in a place where there was nothing there for him…and nobody that would matter as much as those that had left or were taken away by other forces.

 _Rumiko,_ he thought as the tears he had been fighting back for so long finally spilled out of his eyes. "I should've left with you! I should've run away with you after they took our kids from us, Rumiko! I'm sorry!"

He understood that now, how he made a mistake by letting his friend go alone, but now…now, he had a chance to try and make it right. With his mother's pendant, the Space Stone, he could go anywhere he wanted and be wherever he wanted. He could go to wherever Rumiko was and talk to her about his lack of a plan he was already thinking of.

"Please, be alive, Rumiko," he begged as his pendant glowed again.

-x-

"…After what he went through, I doubt he'll want to be found just to pilot it again," Misato told Ritsuko over the phone as she was bathing, "even if he did agree to whatever living arrangements we made for him, it's not like he'd be able to have a life."

"But we don't have any other pilots able to move the Evas right now," Ritsuko reminded. "Until the Angels are defeated, we need him and those like him that are capable of piloting the Evas here, no matter what."

"Even if doing so hurts them?"

"What other choice do we have?"

-x-

Gendo didn't lose any composure over the disappearance of the Third Child. He had every confidence that he would return to pilot the Eva when he realized that he had nowhere else to go in the world, and when he did return, he could implement more to his scenario and achieve his goal. All that he needed to do was bide his time for the boy to return from wherever it was he ran off to, and then everything else would fall into place. And as he stood in front of Unit-01 in the cage, he knew that everything would go according to the scenario he had laid out since the aftermath of his wife's failed experiment…and nothing else would matter.

-x-

It was a dump, and there was no denying it for him. Standing in front of a four-story building in the process of outright decay, ready to crumble at any moment and become nothing but an old memory in a poorly-developed neighborhood full of garbage, including people with no degree of hope.

Shinji couldn't fault his pendant for bringing him here to this unknown location somewhere on the planet; all he thought of was going to wherever Rumiko was, and he was taken to where she was living.

"Hey, kid," he looked at a man sitting by a garbage can, as filthy as the rags he sat on, "can you spare a dollar?"

"I would if I had any, sir," he responded. "Sorry."

"What brings you here?"

"I'm trying to find a friend."

"Hope you find them."

"Thank you."

"Is that them?"

Shinji noticed the guy pointing down the street and he saw a young woman walking towards them. She had long, dark brown hair, had a pale complexion like Shinji did, and wore a yellow dress that barely covered her legs. But it was her gray eyes that caught his attention; they were full of despair and heartache.

"Rumiko," he called out to her. "Rumiko Gaidoku?"

The girl stopped walking and looked at the boy that addressed her…and gasped as she recalled his face from a year ago.

"Shinji?" She asked. "Shinji Ikari?"

"Yes," he answered her, and she ran over and hugged him.

"What are you doing here?" She asked him.

"I needed to see you," he explained to her.

She led him into the building and to her apartment…where, after she closed and locked the door, she wedged a chair under the knob.

"I…live in a rotten neighborhood," she told him. "The guy you met by the garbage bin is the only nice one around. Never tries to do anything beyond asking for a simple dollar. The landlord's a slumlord and the water's always warm instead of hot."

"What do you do?" He asked her, standing against a small dresser.

"Nothing you'd like me for doing."

"You mean…you…have to let others…mistreat you?"

"I'm not proud of what I've done, either, but I can't go back to that house, to that woman. She took my son away and gave him to an orphanage, told those people I was incompetent to care for him when she's the one that made me have him after my father and brother raped me. She only wanted to hurt me after Toya responded more to me than he did her."

"I know. I haven't forgotten that day. I can't ever forget it. You lost Toya…and I lost Shado, the only family I had that I ever gave a damn about and was really mine. We never even signed anything, so we still have our parental rights, even when we were still too young in the eyes of those adults. That's part of the reason I wanted to see you after all this time, Rumiko. A while ago, I… I had to go to Tokyo-3 to see my father…and nothing good came about it. It turns out he only wanted me to work for him at his agency. I left the next day, but I was in between a rock and hard place: I couldn't deal with my old man and I couldn't go back to my aunt and uncle's; no matter which choice I made, there was no place for me to go. And then my mother's pendant started glowing…and I wasn't in that city no more. I was…everywhere and nowhere."

Rumiko then noticed how his Taoist pendant hanging from his neck started glowing, as if to prove he was telling the truth.

"If you could go anywhere you wanted, and not just in the world, but the universe itself, where would you want to go? Where would you want to be?"

"Where would you want to go, Shinji?" She asked him.

"Wherever I had people that mattered to me," he answered her. "I can go anywhere I want because of this stone…but the freedom to go anywhere within the universe…doesn't cure loneliness and heartache. I came to see you…because I want to know if you'd be interested in getting our kids back."

Rumiko gasped at the very thought of seeing Toya again. He might've been either her father or brother's child, but that didn't change the fact that she loved him as her son, not the two men she stopped calling family after realizing that she was nothing more than an outlet for them. Even after her mother gave her lip over not wanting to know the father's identity, Rumiko still felt a little peace from not knowing; she never needed to see Toya as anything else except her son, not her…little brother or nephew, just her child. And now, this opportunity was being presented by her childhood friend to reclaim her son. Did she dare to take it…or turn it away?

"Are we doing this legally or illegally, Shinji?" She asked him.

"Is it really kidnapping if they were taken from us because a bunch of adults decided they were better off away from us, even after they cried and said they wanted to stay with us?" He asked her, implying that trying to do things the legal way wouldn't work for either of them, even if they tried to do things properly.

"Are there any places where people wouldn't think to come after us if we went down this route?"

"How far away is beyond Earth?"

"When they were taken, they were likely taken to the same place. I tried looking it up shortly after I left that house, just to try and send a letter to Toya…and there's nothing about it that's remotely pleasant. Since when does the government treat orphanages like prisons and children like inmates? Our children are probably getting the third degree by everyone there?"

"I still remember giving Shado the custom-made teddy bear I had made for her…the day before last year."

"Ursa Guardian, her first toy that wasn't a hand-me-down. She fell in love with that bear just as much as she loved you."

"Shall we go see them?"

Rumiko was about to agree with him when she looked down at herself.

"Maybe I should change out of this first," she told him; she didn't want to look like some party favor when she met her son after a year apart from him.

"Yeah," he agreed with her. "I'll be honest, though, I barely recognize you dressed like that."

"I know. Whenever I dress up like this…I don't know who I am when I look in the mirror. I always tell myself that this isn't who I am, that I'm not some… That I'm not that kind of woman my mother would always try to make me out as out of spite."

"You're not that kind of woman. You did only what you had to in order to survive. You don't have to, anymore. I mean, you…don't have to live that way, anymore."

A tear escaped Rumiko's left eye when Shinji told her that.

"Shinji?" She asked him.

"Yes, Rumiko," he responded.

"Was there any other reason you came here to see me?"

"Yeah, there was."

"What was it, please?"

Shinji sighed and held out his left hand to her.

"Is it too late to say that I want you, my only friend, back in my life?" He asked her.

She took his hand and uttered, "I need you, too, Shinji."

-x-

"…How did we miss this in his file?" Ritsuko asked Maya as they were reviewing the Third Child's profile in Central Dogma.

"It was sealed, Dr. Akagi," she explained, feeling sympathy for the boy after going over the darkest aspect of his background. "This may change our view on having him pilot the Eva."

"We still need to find him. It is imperative that we do."

The sealed portion of Shinji's file revealed that nearly five years ago, the boy had been kidnapped by three sisters that attempted to hold him for ransom for almost three weeks, and by the time the police did find him, he had already been raped by the youngest sister…who later had his child in prison before dying. The child had been a girl and, despite her maternal relatives being either dead or in prison, was placed in the care of her paternal relatives, namely Shinji, who seemed content with the girl being with him. Unfortunately, the aunt and uncle, after only three-and-a-half years, up and decide that Shinji, despite his struggles at simply doing right by the girl and the girl herself never seeming to want anything to do with the other three relatives on her father's side, was unfit to care for the girl and was costing him his education, which he'd been neglecting just to be with her, and gave her to an orphanage against Shinji's wishes, causing the lack of any positive relationship between the young father and his guardians to be irrecoverably strained.

"Honestly, I don't believe this kid will pilot, no matter what happens," went Hyuga to Maya and Shigeru, having also reviewed the sealed file. "This isn't something one simply forgets…or forgives, even after a year. This kind of hurt builds over time."

"You think he'd reconsider if we got him his daughter back?" Shigeru asked them.

"I doubt his father would permit it," Maya expressed. "I mean, he must've known about his granddaughter…and did nothing about her being taken away."

Ritsuko, of course, understood that even if Gendo knew about the girl, he would've gone to extreme lengths just to keep Shinji separated from her if it meant severing his bonds with others he might've been close to.

When it came to Gendo's lack of a relationship with his son, the best way to ensure his cooperation was to keep him from having any friends.

Looking at the photo of the illegitimate girl, Ritsuko couldn't help but see a resemblance to the girl's father, who himself had a slight resemblance to his mother, wondering if Gendo's reason for wanting Shinji to be by himself had anything to with any recollection to his wife, which seemed to be only a coincidence.

 _The girl certainly looks like Daddy's little girl,_ she thought.

To be continued…

A/N: Here's the second chapter of the story that is now a part of the _Different from You_ series. I expect the next chapter to deal with Shado and Toya's year separated from their single parents and how difficult they find having to adjust to life around people that simply don't make them smile or laugh…or where any degree of happiness is frowned upon, even such as the happy moments felt from holding a teddy bear. See you in the world of tomorrow. Peace.


	3. Broken Bonds, Broken Hearts

Creation began on 02-22-19

Creation ended on 02-22-19

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Infinity Redemption: Broken Bonds, Broken Hearts

A/N: Sometimes, children are able to see the world's imperfections better than the adults that try to ignore them…and sometimes are able to be more desiring than others without compassion.

It was always cold here, and had been that way since before we even got here. The people are colder, though, just like the man and woman that hated my Daddy. I could never understand why they hated him, and he never did anything wrong. If anything, the only wrong he ever did…was being with them.

Daddy, whom some people called Shinji, was always kind to me, always smiling, even when half his smiles were full of pain. Even when others looked at him with dislike or felt he was being foolish or just crazy, whatever any of that even means, Daddy never so much as raised his voice, except for when…it was decided that it was better if we were separated from each other.

" _How could they just decide this for us?"_ Toya, the son of my Daddy's friend, Rumiko, questioned as he threw a fit over our shared predicament. _"They didn't do anything wrong! They did everything they were supposed to do! My mother did everything she was supposed to do! Those other people and her mother, they put you up to this just to hurt them! They did, didn't they? You're wrong for listening to them!"_

And as much as I agreed with him, the adults we were left with…were anything but understanding. Actually, they were nothing but monsters because one of the women in charge actually slapped Toya in his face just for talking back when she stated the rules of being in this orphanage with dozens of other kids.

" _Once you accept that your parents were failures at raising you, things will get easier for you,"_ she told us when we arrived, but I couldn't believe that.

And I still don't believe it. Every day, every second…and nearly every child like Toya and I are either bothered or ignored by the adults that are supposed to be watching us to make sure that we're safe…or we either turn on each other as we're consumed by their ugliness. Toya and I saw two girls gang up on another girl with a blue ribbon…and the adults did nothing.

Even as I hold on tightly to Ursa Guardian, I cling to the hope that Daddy will come for me one day and take me away from this awful place.

-x-

Shado and I are practically the same age, and yet I feel as though we're the only ones here that actually have people out there that want us while nearly everyone else is alone. That awful woman, my grandmother, and those people my mother's friend and Shado lived with… The only word that really resonates with them…is "hate". Hate because they hated our parents more than they hated us…and they never did anything wrong. It was everyone else around them that did everything wrong.

Abuse, lie, or even rob. Denial was their excuse, their shield against the truth. A truth my mother had all the time…was that she didn't wish to see me as anything else except as her son, not something she felt better off not knowing about. This was something her mother wouldn't relent in telling her every now and then since before I could remember…and even then, the lady wasn't much for smiling, even at me.

" _Before I was old enough to realize it, Toya, I was being taken advantage of,"_ my mother explained to me one day while we were at the park with Shinji and Shado. _"I was completely ignorant of what was going. It was a family matter that went bad as soon as it started…and ended badly. My mother hated me for it. She hates me more because there was something she wanted to know about you that I didn't want to know at all. I hope I never have to find out, no matter what your grandmother thinks, but just know that, despite the awful things I've either done in the past or might do in the future, you're the one good thing I ever did right."_

I didn't understand her back then as I do now. Anyone and everyone would say terrible things about my mother, but I still held on to the belief that she was a good person, that they were wrong. Maybe sometimes, and just sometimes, good people will do bad things, but only because they don't know any better. But all around us now, all I can see…is bad people who are willing to do bad things just because they can.

I know this to be true because I had to intervene when one of the people in charge of this terrible place tried to take Shado's Ursa Guardian teddy bear because they wanted her to "let go of her past", but she refused because it was all she had of her daddy.

" _Stop being such a baby and hand over the bear!"_ The man had shouted to her as he tried to pull it from her. _"You're trying to hold onto a hope that will never come true!"_

" _Let go!"_ Shado cried. _"Ursa Guardian's mine and I won't let you take her from me!"_

So I grabbed a small ball and threw it at the man's head, hurting him.

" _Get away from her!"_ I yelled at him. _"It's her bear! Her father gave it to her and it's all she has of him until he comes for her, and he will come for her!"_

I honestly don't know what possessed me to say that, but I felt that in my heart, it was the truth. Ursa Guardian was her…guardian, and like any guardian, it kept an eye on Shado until her father came to get her and take her away from this wretched place.

That's when the man looked at me…and had me thrown in solitary confinement when Shado ran with Ursa Guardian and hid somewhere where the adults couldn't find her. They left me in there for nearly three days; the standard time limit for solitary confinement is just three hours. It is not the best way to put any child on time out, and this place treated all the kids like they were criminals when they try to take just an inch and are suspected of going a mile.

" _Stupid boy,"_ the guy in charge called me. _"Thanks to you, we can't find the dumb bear because your friend hid it and she won't say where, and I'm not going to tear this place apart trying to find it. The both of you are trouble as it is, just like we were told you would be. No wonder nobody will ever want to take you two. I'll make sure of it."_

It isn't like we care much for other people, anyway, but I didn't respond to his rude revelation. I only have one mother, and nobody could or would replace her. The same applied to Shado and her father; he was the only one for her and was irreplaceable.

-x-

With Ursa Guardian safely hidden away and the adults unwilling to do whatever it took to find her, I snuck to where Toya was locked up and sat beside the door in the empty hall.

"Toya?" I called out to him, hoping that he was awake.

"Yeah?" He responded.

"Thanks for sticking up for me."

"If I didn't, who would've?"

 _Nobody,_ I thought as I sighed. "We need to get out of here. I don't know how, but we need to get away from this place."

"I'm all for leaving, but what do we do afterward? Even if we went to our parents, they're probably still living with those adults that had us taken from them. They'll just do it all over again…and then we'll end up back here again."

"But maybe they're not there, anymore."

"We don't know that, Shado. It's been a year now, and, despite my efforts not to, I've forgotten my mother's face. I don't remember what she looks like."

I felt sadness for him forgetting Rumiko's face because they had been separated for so long. Fortunately for him, I hadn't forgotten her looks or my father's.

"She has long, dark brown hair," I told him. "She has gray eyes, a face stained by pain, but with a heart that makes up for it with her kindness. She looks like a mother that actually listens to her child, no matter what other people say. My Daddy's her best friend, the only one that calls him a friend without restriction, offering friendship without a price."

"And what does Shinji look like?"

"Like an older version of myself…but in more pain than words can say."

"We can't get out through the front gate; it's always locked, and that man with the purple ring on his right hand has the key all the time."

"We'll find a way. I just want our parents back. I don't care where we end up, so long as it's with them and away from this place."

"Even if we wound up in a faraway place, and I mean really, really far away?"

"I'd rather be with them there than to spend another week here."

"You and me both, Shado."

"What do you think they're doing right now?"

"You mean our parents? Best guess is my mother is sleeping in a small space while holding onto one of my stuffed animals…while your father is thinking about you in the silence of the night."

"Thanks, Toya."

To be continued…

A/N: And with that, I shall pause on the story until much later, but don't worry, this will be back in due time. There's a hint of something located in this chapter if you know where to look. See you later.


	4. Rage in the Night

Creation began on 02-22-19

Creation ended on 03-30-19

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Infinity Redemption: Rage in the Night

It felt like passing through a small hallway of water and air, with the floor being made of a thick rubber or jelly as she stepped out of the portal Shinji made that led to the orphanage their children were in. And while Rumiko felt elated to be getting her son back, there was a feeling in her heart that kept telling her that something was wrong.

"How good is your control over your pendant, Shinji?" She asked him as they stood in front of the gate that kept them out of the grounds used as a recreational yard for the children.

"I'm an amateur at best, but this should be a quick in and out, Rumiko," he answered her; just because his power was bestowed upon by wearing the Space Stone, it didn't make him a master of it right away.

The stone had only recently awakened in his possession and bonded with him, sharing with him its history and unwillingness to be used in unethical ways like how the last owner and wielder did long ago.

"I have a bad feeling right now," she explained to him.

"How bad is it?"

"Like something is wrong with Toya, as though he's been hurt or worse than that by someone."

"Rumiko…I believe that's your maternal instincts alerting you that he's close by and waiting for you to come get him."

"I'm guessing that there's no such thing as paternal instincts?"

"Maybe not, but I always worry about Shado, regardless of the distance between us. And right now, we're about to become part of the things that go bump in the night."

As his pendant glowed again, the gate in front of them disappeared, and they stepped onto the empty yard.

"Rumiko," Shinji uttered.

"Yes?"

"We didn't think this through at all."

"Damn right. We're just walking out here on the yard…and right towards the front door."

"At least we're not ringing the bell."

-x-

As Shado got up from off the floor, she got the strangest feeling that something was afoot, like someone was up and about.

"I'll be right back, Toya," she told her friend behind the locked door. "I'm going to get Ursa Guardian from where I hid her."

"Be careful," Toya warned her as she left down the hall outside his solitary cell.

As she quietly ran down the hall, the feeling Shado got a moment ago…got bigger.

 _What is going on here?_ She wondered as she ran past a corner where a guard was walking away.

"…Hey, what are you two doing here?!" She heard the guard suddenly yell, stopping in her tracks. "Put your hands in the air where I can…"

Shado never heard the guy finish his demand, for she heard what sounded like a…hit and a fall.

"Okay, that didn't go well," she heard a male voice that wasn't the guard; it was younger…and more welcoming than any of the adults she saw here. "Where'd you learn to kick like that?"

"Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan films," she heard a female voice; there weren't any women that worked here at night.

"Really? That's…amazing."

"As much as wanting to be a damsel in distress felt like a dream when we were younger, I couldn't be fully dependent upon others when it became necessary to rely on your own decisions, for better or for worse. But you're the exception; you came to see me…and now we're doing this, even though others will hate us for it when and if they find out."

"But…in the end, getting our children back…will be worth it, right?"

Shado wasn't sure what was going on, but it seemed like the two voices talking were that of people that were here to take their kids back. It felt almost sad…but there was something about these two that made her…sympathetic to them.

"Shinji, it'll always be worth it if we get our kids out of here," she heard the female voice say, and Shado gasped at the sound of the name being uttered. "What was that?"

Shado turned around and slowly walked back to the corner, stepping into the limited light that was available…and saw two people no older than older kids, one boy and one girl. The boy had a blue gem hanging from his neck that glowed, highlighting his features.

He gasped at the sight of Shado, who looked on the verge of tears herself as she stepped closer.

"Hello," he greeted her. "What is your name?"

Shado responded with, "Daddy calls me Shado because the name a lady that hurt him gave me wasn't nice."

"Fuyona, which meant 'unwanted' when translated. He preferred Shado because…it was better to be his shadow than to be unloved by others."

"I would always be Daddy's shadow…because he would keep me close."

"Because he had someone to love that loved him back."

"Daddy…" The girl cried happily as she ran into her father's embrace. "But…what are you doing here? How are you here?"

"It's a long story, but to be short on it, Rumiko and I are taking you and Toya out of this place and getting as far away as we can."

Shado let go of her father and looked at him and Rumiko, who was tying up the guard they had taken out.

"Toya's locked in solitary confinement down the hall," she revealed to them. "The people in charge of this place aren't nice to anyone. One tried to take Ursa Guardian from me, but Toya intervened. I hid Ursa Guardian and they threw Toya into the room for three days."

"They threw my son in a box?" Rumiko uttered, tying a rope around the guard's mouth. "Okay, we're leaving this place, and we're never looking back."

"But what about the other kids here?" Shado asked them; she didn't deny her distrust of most the children here, being protective of her teddy bear, but she sympathized with the fact that they were unwanted by the majority of people they didn't know, all passengers on the same boat heading towards nowhere.

"How many other kids?" Rumiko questioned.

"Forty-three," Shado answered her. "They've been hurt, too."

Shinji and Rumiko looked at one another and knew they'd be no better than the people that hurt these orphans if they left them to suffer any further by an uncaring bunch of adults that were no different from abusive prison guards.

"Freedom to those that desire it," Shinji uttered. "Go wake them up if they're asleep and explain to them what's going on."

Shado nodded in the positive and ran off with Rumiko while Shinji went to get Toya.

-x-

Toya didn't like the silence outside his cell. It was too long and he didn't think it'd take so long for Shado to get Ursa Guardian from wherever she hid her. But as long as the door to his cell was locked, he couldn't get out and find her.

Knock-knock-knock, he heard a knock on the door, getting his attention.

"Toya," he heard someone say his name out there; they sounded younger, not so vicious or cruel towards others, "are you in there?"

"Who's there?" He uttered, but then realized that he should've stayed quiet since he didn't know who was out there.

Clank! The door knob made a strange sound and fell to the floor in front of Toya as the door slowly opened up; there had been a bright flash of blue light in the darkness that surrounded the knob that Toya had noticed.

The person revealed themselves to be a boy much older than the other boys here, but was younger than the adults here, with dark hair and brownish eyes like those of Shado's, wearing a glowing, blue pendant around his neck.

"Hey, Toya," he greeted kindly. "I'm Shinji, Shado's father."

"I can see some resemblance," Toya responded, getting off the cot he was sitting on. "What's going on? What are you doing here?"

"Your mother and I are here to get you and Shado out of here, though we have to take everyone else here, too."

"Everyone else here? You mean, the other kids that are here?"

"Yeah, all the other kids here. There's forty-three of them, plus you and Shado, which adds up to forty-five children."

-x-

"…I gotta hand it to you, Shado," went Rumiko to the little girl as she pulled Ursa Guardian out from a hole in the wall that was made long ago, "even I wouldn't think to hide something I love in a place like that."

"What better place to hide something than in a space that was broken and nobody bothers to fix?" Shado expressed, hugging the stuffed bear. "Nobody in charge here ever seems to want to fix anything they know is broken or breaking, even when they should. All they do is cover things up…or throw them away."

The little girl then led Rumiko to the middle floor of the building where the children were kept. This left Rumiko feeling uneasy about the way Shado stated that the second floor was where the children were kept.

"Shado…how are you and the other children here treated, exactly?" She asked her.

"The adults are hard," Shado explained. "They always yell at us, tells us we're bad, that we're evil, dirty or how nobody will want us and how we're going to die on the streets when we're older. They don't really pay attention to us, and everyone else can be…well, we're all left to do whatever we can do to make the day hurt less…when we're not being yelled at or told what to do, like wash dishes with a bar of soap or carry out large garbage bags that weigh more than we do. They even try to get rid of our personal possessions as a way of informing us that we're just wastes of space that nobody else will take interest in."

"Shado," Rumiko stopped her in the hallway, "that's terrible. You and Toya…and the other children… None of you deserve to be treated like this. Do they even feed you right?"

"We barely get enough to get through an entire day. The adults keep most of the food they want to themselves while we get the bad leftovers."

Rumiko balled her left hand into a fist. Not only did her mother and Shinji's maternal aunt and uncle send their children to a lousy orphanage, the people in charge of said orphanage themselves were deliberately cruel to them for apparent reason. Even if she hated her parents and elder brother, she wouldn't have wished this on any child, no matter who they were. She wouldn't even wish this on Shinji just because his father was a good-for-nothing failure.

"What about when you're sick?" She asked Shado. "Have any of you gotten sick while you were here? I mean, sore throat, the flu, a fever?"

Shado seemed reluctant to answer Rumiko when asked that question.

"Shado," she spoke again, kneeling down to meet her gaze, "please, I need to know. How do these people treat you when you're sick?"

Shado clutched her teddy and looked up at her.

"There used to be three boys and a girl here that got sick," she explained. "They had the flu. We were told they would get better after a few days, but they never got better. One day, they didn't wake up. They were cold and pale. One of the boys' eyes was open the whole time, but he didn't move. The adults came and took them away and told us never to talk about them. This was five months ago."

Rumiko couldn't believe this. If what Shado told her was true, then these four children were dead and the people in charge of this place just disposed of them like they were garbage.

 _Do orphan and bastard children mean so little to the people that are supposed to be taking care of them?_ She wondered, and then hugged Shado closely. "I'm sorry, Shado. I'm sorry all of you have to suffer this way."

"It's not your fault," Shado told her. "You didn't give us up. We were taken from you."

-x-

When Shinji and Toya made it upstairs to where the other children slept, Shinji's pendant started glowing like a rapid heartbeat, as if trying to tell him something.

 _What is this?_ He wondered.

 _Trouble,_ he heard a man's voice in his head and turned to the opposite end of the hallway…where he saw a man with a purple glow on his right hand.

"Ahh!" Toya gasped, and Shinji looked down at him, seeing his frightened expression.

"Is that him, Toya?" Shinji asked. "Is he the man that locked you up when he tried to take Shado's bear?"

"Yes, Shinji, that's him," Toya answered. "He's the one in charge."

"Who the Hell are you and what are you doing here?" The man asked, making no hint that he was anything but a social person.

Suddenly, from out the door behind Shinji and Toya, Rumiko, Shado and several other children started coming out into the hallway.

"We're just two concerned parents here to take our children…and now we have a reason to take everyone else here, too," Shinji uttered to the man. "Actually, our kids have told us things that make us see why being here was the worst mistake our parents and guardians made."

"Oh, yeah, I remember your face in the girl's file. You're the preadolescent father that was raped by her mother five years ago."

Shado clutched her teddy after hearing that.

"Must you state half of an obvious sore point in my past?" Shinji questioned. "And I wouldn't call that woman my daughter's mother. She never deserved that status, even if she did have Shado, who deserves better than her."

"And you call her that when her name's clearly…"

"Hey, don't you dare correct him, you jerk," Rumiko cut him off. "If he says her name's Shado, then that's her name, no matter what it says on her birth certificate."

"Oh, this is pointless. You two come here without any rights, no authorization, and you say you're here to take your bastards away, along with all these other bastards? And then what happens? What, you think you can just return them to whoever gave them up? They're just undesirables, wastes of space that nobody will ever want. Why else would their parents and guardians give them up? Some of them don't even have much to live for, anyway. Nobody needs them and they won't be missed."

Shinji looked at his daughter, his friend's son and the other children that heard what he said about them, and then looked back at the man.

"If they're hopeless, then they don't deserve to be in a place like this…watched after by people like you," he told him. "You treat them like garbage…and all for money. You say nobody wants them, and I say that you're wrong. I came here tonight because my aunt and uncle made a mistake…and I'm ending that mistake."

"Oh, you want to take your kid away from here? Do that, and you're a wanted man. The police will be after you, no matter where you go."

"Is it really kidnapping when we're here take back our children?" Rumiko asked. "Are we really kidnapping anyone when it appears that you people treat them like they're something to be ashamed of? No, I don't think it's kidnapping when we take back our own. And I don't think it's kidnapping when it's more like liberation from child abuse…and you're the abuser…who should never lay his hands on another child again."

The man raised his right hand up…and Shinji got a better look at the glowing object on his middle finger.

 _That gem,_ he realized, knowing only one thing that could make his pendant glow the way it did, as though warning him. _He has one of the Infinity Stones. It's gotta be the Power Stone._

 _I see the way you're looking at my ring, boy._ Shinji heard the man's voice in his head. _You want it, don't you? You want my ring so you can be a top dog, the big man? Oh, I think I'll use the stone to reduce you to ash so that you're nothing more than a memory._

Shinji had to suspect that those wielding the stones had some degree of telepathy towards one another, able to feel their presence as though they were right next to each other rather than at a distance. If this were true, then there was no reason to try and hide his own understanding of the Infinity Stones that he was granted by the Space Stone.

"Did that stone choose you…or did you find it and decided that you needed to have it?" He asked the man.

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know," the man responded, having no interest in sharing how he came to possess such a relic, "but why don't you hand over that stone around your neck?"

"I'm gonna have to refuse that idea. I've become accustomed to its abilities."

The man's hand then began to glow a brighter shade of purple as he came over.

"I'll tell you what, boy, I'm gonna beat you half to death in front of your kid and then take that stone off your bloody neck, and you're not gonna do anything to stop me," he told Shinji as the children started to cower behind the two teens. "Come here!"

But Shinji frowned as he clutched his pendant.

"You want to fight, let's take it outside!" He told the man, and they both disappeared in a blue ring of light that formed around them.

"Daddy!" Shado gasped.

"It's okay," Rumiko told her. "He didn't go too far."

-x-

The portal dropped them out onto the yard in front of the building, and the man looked at the boy as he quickly got up to his feet.

"Teleportation," he uttered in realization. "Someone I once knew mentioned there was a power of that sort that could be bestowed upon people destined to have it. One of six powers that make up existence: Reality, Mind, Time, Soul, Power…and Space. To think that such a power like one of those ended up in your hands."

Shinji looked at him like he'd been judged all over again by someone older than he was, first as an unfit parent, and now as someone unfit to have a little piece of power that had sentience and chose him over countless millions that lived around him.

"My daughter has always been my blessing," Shinji uttered, and then ran towards the man, "and you tried to hurt her!"

BASH! He kicked him in between his legs and then punched him in the face.

 _Damn,_ he thought, _this kid has a serious right hook._

Getting his footing, the man punched Shinji in the stomach, shoving him backwards onto the ground. Then, he grabbed his left leg.

"You're dead, kid," he uttered as the Power Stone on his ring started to glow like fire.

 _Shinji, the Power Stone reacts violently to anything organic,_ the consciousness of the Space Stone yelled to him. _This man is going to reduce you to ash!_

"Gaah!" Shinji gasped and kicked the man with his right leg, freeing himself before the Power Stone could cause harm.

His pendant glowed and he fell through portal underneath him…and he was now eight feet away from the guy's ring.

"You can't beat me by running away," he told Shinji.

"And you can't kill me if you can't touch me," Shinji retorted. "You know that stone you have is dangerous if you ever thought of using it on the ground. You'd kill us all."

"You think I'd believe in that pathetic lie? All I've ever done with this stone is get rid of the human debris that takes its last breath here because the last guy wouldn't do what was best for the orphanage."

"Get rid of the human debris? Because that stone is dangerous, you purposely… The last guy… That stone doesn't belong to you. It doesn't belong to you…but you're abusing what it can do to hurt people. You're not a chosen stonekeeper like I am. You're just a pretender. There will be a price to pay for wielding a power you're not supposed to have."

"Oh, and you would know?"

"Do you know the difference between a pretender and the real thing? The stonekeeper has intimate knowledge on how the stone in their possession works, to the point where it becomes second nature. But a pretender, all they can do is what they know, basically, unable to truly grasp the full power of the stone. You could've only gotten your stone from the real owner through some form of deception, and I think you silenced him so he couldn't take it back. You will never understand how powerful it truly is."

"I know it's powerful enough to level a building if it's pressed against even a door!"

Shinji saw him run towards the orphanage building, intending to use the Power Stone to damage it with Rumiko and the children still inside it.

"No!" He yelled, and conjured a portal in front of the man that sent him running towards himself.

Kick! He kicked him in the balls again.

"You little bastard!" He yelled at Shinji and jumped him to the ground. "I'll kill you right now!"

FLASH! Their stones flared like crazy between them, surrounding them in swirls of purple and blue light.

"Die, boy!" The man yelled at him.

"Daddy!" Shinji heard his daughter's voice as he turned his head towards the building, seeing her and the others outside. "Daddy!"

"Why?" The man questioned; normally, his victims turned to ash right after he touched them, but Shinji hadn't even started to show signs of being affected by the stone on his ring. "Why aren't you burning away?!"

But Shinji couldn't answer as he was being choked by him. He looked at his hand, the Power Stone still flaring…and got an idea.

 _This will teach him,_ he thought, imagining a portal forming around the man's wrist.

Suddenly, a small portal began to form around his wrist.

"What the Hell are you doing?!" He demanded.

SNAP! The portal snapped closed into nothingness…and severed his hand.

"Aaaah! Aaaaurgh!" He screamed as he pulled back, his severed appendage cauterized by the energy given off by the portal Shinji used against him. "Aaaaurgh!"

Shinji picked up the severed hand and tossed it back at him.

"That's what you get for not keeping your hands to yourself," he told him.

"I'll kill you," he groaned, picking up his hand. "I'll kill you!"

Suddenly, the Power Stone started flaring up again, but this time against the man. It broke free of the ring and surrounded him in its energy.

"Aaaauurgh! Help me! Help me!" He yelled, and Shinji saw what was happening to him.

The energy radiating from the stone was burning him away slowly. It looked like a ring of fire starting from his middle and began expanding across the rest of his body. Judging from his reactions, the process was agonizing.

"Aaurgh! No! Please!" He screamed, falling to the ground as he tried to crawl towards Shinji. "Please! I don't want to die!"

" _Coward,"_ his father's voice echoed in his mind.

The Power Stone now began to glow with a pulsating ring to it, attracting Shinji's Space Stone as it resonated with one another.

 _Show mercy, even to those that don't deserve it,_ he thought; the stones were telling him to be merciful to this madman that hurt his child…just because they knew Shinji wasn't without mercy. _Nobody, even the unworthy and unappreciative of life…deserves to die like this._

He summoned another portal under the man and dropped someplace with a lot of water, removing him from the location, leaving the Power Stone behind.

"I hope you appreciate how close you came to paying the ultimate price for wielding a power that would kill you," he uttered.

-x-

Splash! The man on fire fell into the cooling waters of Lake Ashi.

"Gaah!" He gasped as he broke the surface of the water and waded to shore…where he dropped in relief at being shown mercy. "I…I lived."

-x-

"…Is it…safe for you to hold that?" Toya asked Shinji as he held the Power Stone in his bare hands.

"For now," he answered. "This stone is one of the more dangerous objects in existence because it's without a chosen wielder. Anyone with the means to possess it can possess it, but unless you're chosen by it, it's as dangerous to you as it is to those around it."

"Then…what are you going to do with it?" Rumiko asked him. "You wield a stone like it. If you have two of them…well, you'd be stronger than ever."

"Yeah, I could…but it wouldn't mean anything to me if I couldn't protect the people I love with it…and wanting the Power Stone for the sake of power…is pure greed, a god complex without any restraint."

His pendant glowed and the Power Stone…was absorbed into it.

"What happened, Daddy?" Shado asked her father. "Where'd the stone go?"

"I hid it someplace far from here…and devoid of life so that nobody could exploit it," he explained, and then picked her up off the ground. "I missed holding you, Shado."

The girl hugged her father and responded that she missed him, as well.

-x-

The next morning, the news was spinning a crazy tale of an orphanage being attacked in the middle of the night and ransacked in the most unusual of ways. Somehow, someone had demolished it by…quartering it, reducing it to rubble across the property. The people that worked there that were removed before it was destroyed claimed that two teens came by and took the orphans from it, claiming that two of them were theirs…and a burnt man with a severed hand backed up the story by identifying the boy that took his hand off.

"…So," went Ritsuko to Gendo that morning in his office, "it looks like the Third Child decided to take back his daughter and free some orphans with her."

"Have the MAGI monitoring every possible location the Third Child could be hiding in," Gendo ordered her. "Use any surveillance means we have: Pod cameras, street cameras, building security cameras, cell phones and tablets, whatever."

"Assuming that it was even him, how could the boy be capable of reducing a building to rubble? Or sending one of the orphanage attendees to Lake Ashi while burning him and severing his arm? It doesn't seem like him?"

All Gendo wanted right now was the boy found so that he could pilot the Eva again. Whatever means Shinji had that enabled him to do what the media was claiming he did, he didn't really care about it because he'd take them away from him. Nothing except his scenario needed to be focused upon.

 _Where are you?_ He wondered, looking down at a picture of the boy and his illegitimate daughter.

To be continued…

A/N: I'm not sure when the next chapter of anything will be posted after this, but at least this one got worked on. Peace out, people!


	5. An Ally

Creation began on 04-03-19

Creation ended on 04-29-19

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Infinity Redemption: An Ally

It was a crazy move on Shinji's part, but the Space Stone only did as he asked of it, which was to relocate himself, Rumiko, their children and the orphans away from the orphanage he just demolished into pieces to a safe place where they were unlikely to be found. He didn't expect to be relocated to a church…or in the presence of a woman dressed like a penguin (he hadn't been too familiar on the concept of a nun), let alone one that wielded another of the Infinity Stones on her prayer beads.

" _I've been expecting you for some time now,"_ she had greeted Shinji when they arrived inside the yard in the middle of the day; the fact that it was light out indicated they were far from Japan, possibly in the west.

 _The Space Stone, the Power Stone, and now the Soul Stone,_ Shinji thought as he sat with Rumiko at a small table in a kitchen. _It's like an Infinity Stone convention or something._

Rumiko placed a comforting left hand on his shoulder, assuring him that he wasn't alone in what he was going to do.

"…I've peered into the hearts of the children that were with you two," the mother superior told them as she refilled their cups with tea, "and all they had in them was gratitude over being taken away from an awful place where people hurt them. Your own children, especially, were relieved to have you come for them."

"But…based on my perception of your profession, ma'am," went Rumiko to her, "what we've done is viewed by you as a sin, taking children that don't have any business being with us."

"You came here to this church seeking sanctuary against those that may come looking for you," she expressed. "I'd be betraying my oath to the Lord by turning you away. Sanctuary must be given to all that seek it, even to those that are viewed by others as unholy. I know you two have met with cruelty masked as everything but what they were truly supposed to be, but despite the pain you've endured, your hearts remain pure because of the people that matter to you being in your lives. I will not betray you to those that seek you. You have my word, and my word is my bond…till my final breath."

"Thank you," Shinji praised her. "Is it alright if I ask…how long (he slowly pointed to her prayer beads on her right hand)?"

"Twenty-three years," she answered. "I've carried the Soul Stone for twenty-three years, after the passing of my superior, who gave it to me as she lay dying. Out of the two of us, your stone is strong, but your will is passive, whereas mine is enduring. Will you seek the stone for your own intentions?"

"I don't want the Soul Stone," he informed her. "There's no need for wanting it or any thought of why it should be desired. I know there are six stones, but what would be the point of wanting more than one? I wouldn't unless it was to do something that could help the people like the orphaned children…or take them someplace that they can live and be happy."

"Wield one of the six, and you're powerful in your own right when they choose to work with you," the mother superior stated, "but wield all six, then anything you desire is possible."

"But…what if you didn't want or need all six to do something that could be possible with just less than the total sum of stones?" Rumiko asked her. "Is it possible to do something impossible with just a few of them?"

"Like what?"

"Like…anything."

"It would depend upon the thing that is impossible to do unless you had the stones."

Eight minutes later, the mother superior had treated them all to lunch in the kitchen; not many complained about chicken soup when it was better than eating expired, stale food prepared by people that could care less about them.

"…So, what are your plans for the future, Shinji?" She asked him. "How do you and…your lady friend…intend to handle looking after your children and the orphans you liberated when the world is going to be looking for you?"

"Try to find some place for us beyond the reach of the law," Shinji explained.

"You won't have that problem, as the Space Stone affords you access to countless worlds that exist within the confines of this universe. However, I don't have faith in there being worlds that all people can live on."

That's when Shinji realized that she was absolutely right about that. Even if he could use the Space Stone to find them all a new place to live, there was no guarantee that any other planet within the universe would be similar to this one…or as adaptable to suit human conditions.

" _Human beings can only live on Earth,"_ he recalled his mother saying when he was a toddler, now resenting her belief on how humans could only live on one planet while her abomination, the Eva, could live for eternity and would outlast everything from planets to suns when there was no such being that could outside of the realm of God.

"Mother superior," he spoke up as an idea came into creation, "is it possible to use the stones…to create a new planet that is like Earth…from scratch?"

"With the stones, anything is possible," she answered, "but you would need the right stones to do so…if not all six of them."

"Then…we'd have to find wherever or whoever has the Mind, Time and Reality Stones and just ask to borrow them to do one thing only."

The mother superior looked at the boy and wondered just how committed he was to wanting to do just this one thing with the Infinity Stones. It was one thing to have one stone choose you over countless others across the vastness of the universe, but it was another thing to slowly develop the negative qualities that would drive a person to desire the power of the stones for the sake of having power. It would be in fate's hands that this child didn't succumb to the darkness inherent within them all to possess them.

 _But I've seen his soul with mine,_ she thought, seeing a pure, pinkish glow emanating from Shinji's body thanks to the power of the Soul Stone, indicating his degree of innocence in his heart and soul; if it were tainted by red or a pure black, then she would've seen how either damaged or corrupted he became by desires of greed or envy. _He doesn't seek the power of the stones for any delusions of divinity. If he seeks them to do something to help these children, then his heart must be pure and devoted to those that mean more to him than life itself._

-x-

"…Did you talk to the former head of the orphanage again?" Ritsuko asked Misato as they stood on the bridge in Central Dogma, overlooking the surveillance graphics that were displaying as much of the region as possible as NERV was looking for the Third Child.

"I did," Misato answered her. "Three days in the hospital hasn't changed his story or his mindset on what happened."

"His story…and confession hasn't changed?"

"Not a single deviation. But he's clearly hiding something about what happened that night. He says that the boy severed his hand, but didn't say how, not even how he set him on fire. Something clearly has him terrified of the boy more than the fact that he and the other people in charge of the place were using methods of abuse on the children under their care. If Shinji did do something that seemed impossible for anyone else to do, the man would have a reason to be afraid that he'd do something like it to him if he tried to expose him or something."

"That's illogical," Ritsuko stated. "Anyone that fears an unusual child because of something they're said to be capable of is a fool."

"And someone afraid of someone else out to reclaim their child?"

"They're an even bigger fool."

-x-

"I would suspect that a church serving as a refuge for orphans would be the last place any of the law expect to come find you here," the mother superior told Shinji and Rumiko as the day turned to night outside. "You should be safe to hide here before anyone decides to come asking questions to your whereabouts."

"You really don't have to shelter us for too long, ma'am," said Shinji to her, sitting beside his drowsy daughter as she laid down on the cot with her teddy among the other children.

"It would be a sin to turn you away just because you showed up and I didn't do my duty to bestow shelter to you. And…you need someone you can trust that will understand what it is you're hoping to achieve. I guess you could say that we both have a similar interest when it comes to wanting to protect those whose lives matter most to us. So count me as an ally to you."

"Thank you," went Rumiko to her as she put her son to sleep. "My greatest fear right now is my mother sending the police after me because I took my son back from people she handed him off to over a year ago."

The mother superior saw through the girl's soul and saw only discontent in her relationship with her mother, father and elder brother, a sinful stain upon her former childhood ignorance…exploited by the two men in her family that decided to take advantage of her that led to her premature entrance to motherhood. Of course, none of it was her fault if she didn't understand why it was a sin, and she couldn't be blamed for her role in it all if nobody bothered to tell her. Not only that, but it wasn't her fault that her mother had developed a vicious attitude that drove a great wedge between their hearts.

"You two should sleep, as well," she told them.

"Thank you," Shinji responded.

-x-

"The police are looking, but they're not getting their hopes up in looking for two teens and a large number of orphan children from an orphanage that got ripped to pieces, Ikari," Fuyutsuki told Gendo in his office. "Personally, I wouldn't expect to find them by the time of the next Angel attack."

"It is imperative that the Third Child be found before then," Gendo responded. "We don't have a working autopilot system yet, so he's a necessity."

Unfortunately, it seemed like the chances of finding Shinji just to make him pilot the Eva again were slim to nonexistent. As Fuyutsuki felt, it was likely more beneficial if NERV requisitioned the Second Child and Unit-02 from Germany instead of going after Shinji because he chose to leave. To go after him was a waste of time and resources…and for someone that wanted nothing to do with NERV's operation to begin with after being abandoned by his father over a decade ago and had no positive relationship with any of his family, all save his illegitimate daughter.

"Do you even suppose he'd come back if we promised him he could be with his daughter like before when your in-laws had them separated against their will?" He asked Gendo.

"We don't have the luxury of doing something as ridiculous as that," Gendo answered him, implying that there was no way he'd permit Shinji to be with the girl. "Unless we defeat the Angels, mankind has no future."

-x-

As he slept in a small room within the convent, Shinji found his dreams jumbled with his memories and fears. Walking away with Shado, Rumiko and Toya, his father shows up and shoots them. He and Rumiko try to walk down the street to a park, the police show up and arrest them. Their children try to go out and be children, and people in suits show up to take them away, all over again. The only time where something doesn't happen that's terrible is when Shinji saw them and the other orphans on some strange world that looked like a tropical jungle with a waterfall and a beautiful sunset.

"Shinji," Rumiko asked him in another dream he was having where he was back in Tokyo-3, "are your parents in bed with the Devil?"

Before he could answer her, the ground shook and cracked open to reveal Unit-01 rising over them, holding Rumiko in its left hand.

"Shinji," he heard his mother's voice from the Eva, "everything happens as it must, and your friend here…is a hindrance, so she must be dealt with."

Then, without warning, the Eva crushed the girl to death.

"No!" Shinji yelled, waking up and finding himself back in the room. "Shado…Rumiko…Toya…the stones…my parents… I have to find a future that is one worth having, not what they think has to happen."

 _You won't be alone,_ he heard the mother superior's voice in his mind.

"Thank you," he praised.

To be continued…

A/N: Now we have two known stonekeepers that are on the same side because they have people that matter to them; Shinji and his daughter, Rumiko and her son, and the mother superior and her duty to the children under her protection. Now we need to gather the remaining three stones and see what Shinji can pull off.


	6. Temporal Maiden

Creation began on 05-14-19

Creation ended on 10-03-19

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Infinity Redemption: Temporal Maiden

Gasp! Shinji awoke to the new day after living in hiding from the authorities with his daughter, his friend, Rumiko and her son, Toya, along with the other orphans in the church governed by the mother superior; they'd been in hiding for almost two weeks, and each time he thought he could breathe a sigh of relief that they hadn't been found yet, that lingering doubt in the back of his mind always told him not to, that sooner or later, someone was going to find them and apprehend them to the full extent of the law.

"Daddy…" He heard his daughter's voice as he turned to face her sleeping form on his left side of the small bed, holding her teddy as she continued to sleep.

"I gotta stop worrying about the unknown," he told himself.

-x-

The only benefit of hiding in a church was that they were in the States, as Rumiko discovered when she asked the mother superior what country they were in. Sweeping up the dust on the floor, the young woman and teenage mother suspected that, due to the States not suffering as much as Japan had because of a nightmarish catastrophe that a handful of people deliberately caused, they were unlikely to be found for some time because it was such a big place and the law enforcement agencies were few and divided. What was more was that people probably didn't know much about Shinji's identity, let alone her own, or the identities of their children and the orphans, so it would take them a while to get their details straightened out.

"You worry about being found and forced to go back to your country, don't you?" The mother superior asked her as she appeared down the hallway. "I can see the concern on your face."

Rumiko sighed and set the broom against the wall.

"I just got my son back, and the last thing I want to see him get ripped from my arms again by someone that thinks they know what's best for him," she explained to her. "And Shinji, of all the men I've known in my life…is the first person that hasn't pursued me for… The fact that he's a gentle soul, despite his traumatic experiences and poor excuses for parents and guardians, I do love him. I mean, I love him, just not…the way my father and brother claimed to love me."

"That's not love, what your father and brother did to you," she told her. "That was lust, the dark side of love that deals only in the pleasure of oneself, not the comforting of others. And your friend, his affection for you…sparked right after he met you, the only person he knew that actually wanted to spend time with him, that didn't know or care for who his father was and could care less about who his mother was. Even after you were both unexpectedly blessed with your children, regardless of how they came to be because they're as innocent as you two are, Shinji still cares about you. He is someone that can't see himself…and fears…seeing himself without the people he wants to trust, to embrace and live with. You three, above all others, are his shoulder to lean on, the smiles he loves to see the most, his motivation for wanting to find the stones necessary to fulfill this one ambition that he has."

"A world that's identical to Earth…only for those that have little to nothing…and just want a home to call their own."

"If you could have that, would it be worth your time?"

"It would. Where I was when Shinji came to find me, it was just where I ran away to. A crappy apartment in a rundown neighborhood…but it was never my home. Growing up, I've always heard that home was a place that had the people you love, that love you, there waiting for you to appear. I want something like that for myself…and I'm willing to wait for that one ambition I have to come to life."

The mother superior smiled at how the girl had a simple dream, a simple ambition, unfettered by a sense of greed or hatred.

"We should get started on breakfast soon before everyone wakes up," she told Rumiko.

-x-

"…Some of us are beginning to suspect that he isn't here in Japan, Ikari," Fuyutsuki told Gendo in the latter's office. "If he's not in this country, he could be anywhere."

"A fourteen-year-old boy with no money or a travel pass can't possibly get far," Gendo declared. "And from the information obtained from the former head of the orphanage his illegitimate child was cast off to a year ago, he, a teen girl around his age and over two dozen orphans can't get very far at all…unless they had help from someone."

"You clearly don't know your own son, Ikari. Even his file says much of what is never spoken. He was kidnapped by three financially-desperate crooks, your in-laws didn't bother reporting him missing while a friend of his, presumably the only one he has and the same girl with him, called the police eight times until someone listened to her, but by the time they found him a few days later, one of the women that took him assaulted him and had his daughter in prison before dying. Nobody except Shinji wanted her, and for nearly three years, he took care of her to the point of disregarding any ideas of making friends with others his own age…until your in-laws decided to separate them because they didn't want to see him being so attached to her. That act caused irrevocable damage to their already-strained relationship with Shinji, who hasn't returned to their place, not even after he was told never to come back. So, tell me, who could help Shinji…when even the majority of his own family…wouldn't raise a finger to help him cope with his trauma, with his loss or his suffering? Who would offer assistance in getting him anywhere in this pain-filled world when he couldn't even go back to his guardians?"

Gendo couldn't answer him because there was nothing in the boy's file to indicate that Shinji had anyone willing to help him with anything, including raising his illegitimate daughter. There were no indications of any friends beyond the Gaidoku girl, whom he hadn't seen for over a year after they both lost their children because of their parents or guardians; the girl had run away from her mother's and simply disappeared until she was said to be have seen with Shinji when they went to the orphanage and took their children back. Even so, there was no one else, no friends, no admirers, no emergency contacts, etc. The boy was cut off from the world.

-x-

"…I didn't think a church was permitted to have a library," Rumiko expressed to Shinji as they were in a small chamber in the church where the books were housed.

"That's okay. I didn't know churches lacked smoked detectors." He told her as he looked through an old cook book. "Have you found anything of interest on your end?"

"Just an old book I would read to Toya when he was two. Hey, Shinji, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"Did you ever…regret coming to see me that night?"

"No. You were the only person on my mind when I discovered the power of the Space Stone and its ability to take me anywhere I wanted to go. Even if you were content with your life and didn't want to see me after that night, nothing was going to stop me from going to get Shado afterward. I was happy just to see you after that day long ago."

"That life wasn't right for me. Any future you can create using the power of the Infinity Stones, I'll support you because anything's better than what was…and what could've been if things had gone differently from before."

"Tell me something, Rumiko."

"What?"

"Do you think it would be a sin…if we had severed our ties to our families, all save our children, and they never heard from us ever again?"

"Honestly, Shinji, it wouldn't be a sin. It wouldn't be a sin…because they severed their ties with us first when they decided to rip our kids away from us…or, in your case, cast us aside in favor of pursuing their own interests. Their actions inflicted grievous wounds to our hearts that time can't mend, and they knew they would be hurtful. My family is an omen to me that I can't change. The only one that has light from that family…is my son, and whose father might as well be silent in every matter of import because he's a nonexistent being. Your family is just a mountain of contempt and ugliness that condemned you before you were even old enough to understand anything. The only person that doesn't hate you for being alive, for being who you are…is your daughter, and her mother's nothing but a silent, nameless stranger who couldn't do right by her, even if she was still alive. Why?"

"Because I can't risk getting Shado taken from me a second time by them if we ever saw them again, which also means I can't risk your mother sending Toya away if you saw her again. Once was a traumatic attack to our lives, but twice is a severe blow, and I don't know how I'd react if it were to happen a second time. I'd probably go insane. I'd probably die from grief."

Rumiko then said to Shinji, "I wouldn't hold it against you if you did. Some people are just…plain cruel to those who have done nothing wrong to them."

Shinji then set the book down and excused himself from the library to be with his daughter, leaving Rumiko alone amongst the legion of old books.

Rumiko looked up at a small statue of Jesus on the wall and sighed at how pathetic her own attempts were to get past her estrangement with her parents and brother. Then, without any sense of direction, she turned away from the statue and towards a small jar full of small, gold pendants. She walked over to it and examined them, taking out one of the pendants.

"These all seem to be the same guy," she uttered.

"He's called St. Jude," she heard the mother superior say to her, and she turned around to face the entrance to the library. "He's the patron saint of lost causes, among other things."

"Why does he represent lost causes?"

"Sometimes, people tend to give up on other people they believe have no value. But those that choose not to give up on them, even if they do seem hopeless, have more faith in them than the ones that did."

"And this church cares for the children that are slowly dying…even when it seems hopeless to pray for a miracle to save them?"

"That's right, but when it's their time, I use the Soul Stone to see them off to the world beyond our own. No matter how short their time was here, I let them know that their lives mattered, that they were loved…even if it wasn't by the people that should've been around to show them how much they cared. That…has always been the choice of every mother superior that was chosen to wield the Soul Stone."

"I don't understand how each of these stones serves to represent different parts of the universe."

"Those that understand the stones, even to their most simple degree, tell what they know to those willing to listen. Before God created the universe, there were six beings beneath him that predated all of existence, and when he created the universe, these beings were reduced to what remained of their own existence, serving to guide all the people towards the future. They would serve as the eternal force for keeping the universe stable: Reality, Space, Time, Mind, Power and Soul. At one point, only those with extraordinary resilience could wield these stones, but now only those chosen by the stones can wield them without fail or consequence, and each stone can either help or hurt, depending upon the chosen wielder. Preferably, the will of the stones would rather help over harm."

Rumiko sighed and put the pendant back in the jar.

"Those that believe themselves to be lost causes are often the ones that find a cause to commit themselves to," the mother superior expressed her belief, "and sometimes, just sometimes, a cause finds those that believe themselves to be lost causes."

"How does a cause find a lost cause?"

"Unexpectedly, young lady; you never know where, when, why or even how it comes to you. But when it does, it's up to you to decide whether or not to accept it. People always have a choice…even when there are those that try to make it seem like they have none."

"Like what Shinji's father tried to do to him, making him pilot a giant robot…or cyborg…or whatever those people Shinji met called it, and he initially refused, but was forced to reconsider when he was baited using a girl that was injured. But now Shinji knows better than to listen to people like that…and I know better than to believe my parents love me when my father and brother… I'm sorry. Shinji's been the only person I've been able to…express my personal feelings to about other people, but sometimes, I forget that if I say the wrong thing, I can hurt those around me without meaning to."

"You've both been hurt by ties that no longer connect to the heart," the mother superior stated, "and it was only recently you were learning to be free, to truly be free, from those ties that try to control you. Don't fret, though. So long as they can't find you here, you have time to come to terms with your lives. Just…live."

The mother superior then left the room…and Rumiko sighed as she decided to take one of the pendants of St. Jude and wore it around her neck; she wasn't much of a practitioner of any religion, but if there was such a thing as a saint that represented people that the rest of the world disregarded, she could believe in them over the deities of her own country and religion.

As she vacated the room, she failed to notice a small, green glow emanating from the jar. It lasted for only three seconds before fading away.

-x-

"…So…how long have you been here with the mother superior?" Shado asked a boy a little older than herself, wearing a white shirt and blue pants as they and the other children were outside in the yard.

"Oh, two years," he answered her. "My parents and I were on our way to the hospital when we were in a car accident. I woke up two days later, and my parents were… It's water under the bridge now. What about you? Is that young man really your father?"

"He is."

"But he's so…and your friend's mother, she must be around his age… How'd you get to be the daughter of such a young person?"

"A bad lady hurt my daddy when she decided to have me. I don't know anything beyond that, but Daddy has always cared about me when no one else in his family would. His aunt, uncle and cousin didn't like him…and as a result, didn't like me, either."

"That's terrible."

"But I'm with Daddy again, so I don't think about them. I know they're not thinking about me."

"What do you mean by, you're with your father again?"

"A year ago, we were separated. We didn't want to be, but his aunt and uncle gave us no say. Miss Rumiko's son, Toya, and I were forced to live at this orphanage when we were handed over, and for days, it felt like a nightmare we were barely waking up from…until our parents came and got us. I don't care if they didn't have permission to do so; I was happy Daddy came for me, that he still wanted me in his life, even if others hated him because of me."

"Sometimes, it's better to forgive than to permit. If your parents had every intention of coming to get you, regardless of what others said or believed, then they were better off asking for their forgiveness than to ask for their permission to continue being your parents. In some respects, it's better to forgive one's actions than to permit their actions."

"Thank you."

The boy than put his left hand on his head…and slowly brought it back down, holding a small chunk of his blond hair in it.

"Why'd you do that?" Shado asked him.

"It's a part of my sickness," he explained. "I'm dying."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I was sick ever since I was three. The mother superior is kind and everyone's going to the same place when they die. My parents will be there waiting for me."

However, Shado wasn't as optimistic as this boy was. It mainly stemmed from her time at the orphanage where less than five children died and were disposed of; to be with people that simply let you die and could care less was not the best place for any child.

"But you should take joy in the fact that you have your father with you," the boy told her. "Cherish every moment spent with him."

-x-

It was a painful sight to see for Shinji, but it helped to explain more of why the mother superior wielding the Soul Stone was seen as benevolent instead of cruel like the majority of the other organizations in the world. A little girl of seven years of age, unable to get out of bed now because of an operable cancer of her liver, but untreatable due to her parents being dead and her other relatives being uninterested in looking after her and medical agencies deeming an operation too expensive because they needed more money from those that had plenty of it. While it was saddening to watch her die, the mother superior, aided by the power of the Soul Stone, held the girl's left hand as she closed her eyes for the last time.

"Thank you, Sister Rosetta," the girl said to her…and was later silent.

The Soul Stone ceased its glow with the passing of the girl, and the mother superior looked up at the ceiling, wiping away a tear that escaped her right eye.

"She's in Heaven now," she told Shinji.

"I don't understand how you're able to do what you do for these kids…and not let it break you," he confessed to her. "I don't think I could ever do what you do?"

"I'm able to do what I can…because of my will to be there for the children no one else will be there for…and my conviction to see their souls off to the heavens where they're free from their pain…no matter what anyone else says."

"Can you see Heaven because of the stone?"

"I can."

"Please, out of curiosity…is it truly beautiful like people say it is when you go there?"

"It is. While I can't say what it looks like in detail, I can say that it is a big place where everyone that goes there…can find peace."

"Thank you."

Shinji looked to the newly-dead girl in the bed and bowed his head to her.

"It doesn't get easier, does it?" He asked her.

"No, but there is a reason for our mortality," she answered. "If we all lived forever, we'd be condemning ourselves to consuming the world because there would be too many of us. The last owner of the stones to have unforgivable intentions against every man, woman and child in existence believed himself to be responsible for deciding their fate, and he decided he needed to save the universe…"

"By wiping out half of its occupants, which maimed everyone left behind," Shinji stated; he was familiar with the history because the Space Stone told him about it. "Anyone that goes after the stones to do something like that, or something similar to that, is no better than the man that did it first and thought he was being merciful. It's why the stones are not easy to claim or control. They impose these requirements and test one's worthiness to wield them. The ones they choose, they can talk to, give advice or guidance. The ones that simply take them, they warn that they will not be able to achieve what they want without paying a form of penance."

"Our greatest penance…as well as our greatest blessing…is the fact that we are mortal, that we're frail, that our days are numbered…and the impact that we have on those we leave behind. When we die, we trade away our blessing for another one…until we decide we want the previous one back and live again. To understand this…and to accept this as the infallible truth in a short line of infallible truths…is why those wielding the Soul Stone reside in a place by themselves among the stonekeepers."

Shinji's Space Stone started glowing, pulsating every three seconds.

The mother superior, Sister Rosetta's Soul Stone also started glowing and pulsating; something was affecting them that their wielders were oblivious to because they didn't understand yet.

"My stone did something like this with the Power Stone after that madman was nearly killed," Shinji explained to her.

"Someone must either be in trouble because of a stone," Sister Rosetta suggested, "or…it's possible that another stone has made itself known."

"Another Infinity Stone is near? There's only Reality, Mind and Time out there, and I haven't found any of them yet."

"Each stone gives off a colored aura, representing each aspect of the universe: Space glows blue, Power is purple, Soul is orange, red for Reality, green for Time and yellow for Mind. If any glow catches your perception, you must assume that it's one of these stones. But since you hid the Power Stone away to prevent its misuse and abuse by anyone unworthy of it, we're left with only green, yellow and red."

Their stones continued to glow and intensify. Something was clearly riling them up.

"Soul has never been this bothered before," Sister Rosetta expressed.

"The only time my pendant ever glowed like this was after I left NERV."

"Most likely when you were under duress."

Their stones glowed brighter and released a pair of glowing spheres that flew out of the room.

Shinji and Sister Rosetta looked at one another and decided to follow the glowing spheres.

"Until we meet again, Heather," Sister Rosetta told the dead girl she helped to see to the other side. "Know only the peace you've been given."

Then, they left the little girl's room and looked for the glowing spheres.

-x-

SEELE didn't give Gendo much of an option but to give up on looking for the Third Child. So long as the Eva could work, they ordered him and NERV to look for another pilot if the boy went missing after attacking an orphanage and taking back his bastard daughter. But Gendo, being disrespectful of any authority higher than his own, was unwilling to obey their orders; so long as the Third Child was still alive, his scenario required him to pilot Unit-01 until he no longer needed him, and as long as he survived each attack by the Angels, even as a cripple with only an arm and leg, piloting was what he'd have his son do.

"…There is a candidate who can be brought up to speed," Ritsuko informed him of one of the pilot candidates that could replace the Third Child. "He's a local and…"

"Not yet," he told her, not wanting to use any of the pilot candidates just yet. "Continue to search for the Third Child."

"But sir, we were ordered by the Committee to cease all attempts to find the boy."

"He can't stay hidden forever…and he can't stay away forever. When he comes to realize how important it is for him to pilot the Eva, he will return."

"And what will happen should he still refuse?"

Once more, Gendo couldn't answer such a question. But he didn't have any belief in faith or some other nonsense, just that through careful manipulation of how the boy turned out, he would feel obligated to do what he had no other choice but to do.

-x-

None of the children saw the glowing spheres, but Shinji had to wonder if Rumiko saw them when he heard from Toya that he hadn't seen his mother in a while.

"Shado," Shinji spoke with his daughter when he found her in the hallway with her bear, "have you seen Rumiko recently?"

"No, Daddy," she answered him, and then pointed towards some stairs nearby. "She might be in the bathroom on the second floor."

"Thank you, sweetie."

Shinji and Sister Rosetta went to the second floor of the church where the restrooms were, but found no sign of Rumiko in any stall or by any sink. Their stones continued to pulsate until they started flickering as they walked towards the library, which, only because the door was closed, gave off an eerie, green glow.

"Green?" Shinji spoke up. "The Time Stone? It was here the whole time?"

"I never knew," Rosetta responded; nobody in the convent or the Covenant of the Soul Stone that knew of the stones had ever mentioned the church having another Infinity Stone. "We only knew of Soul. There was no mention of Time."

 _Time has been the most adaptive of the stones,_ the Space Stone told Shinji. _As of late, after the most vile of holders was dealt with, it evolved to represent the basic truth of time: Time is omnipresent, existing everywhere alongside the omnipresence of space itself._

"So, the Time Stone, remaking itself, can be anywhere and nowhere, all at the same time?" Rosetta questioned, revealing that she heard what the stone was saying.

 _That is right,_ the stone answered her. _But for now, Time is here…and Time has a reason for being here that is beyond Space and Soul._

Shinji went over to the door and turned the knob, getting bathed in the green light.

Gasp! Shinji saw something he wasn't prepared to see, and it frightened him beyond that of the situations with the Angel or the guy with the Power Stone.

Rumiko, floating in the middle of the chamber, was bathed in the green light of a small, gem-like object that floated above her.

-x-

 _Time sees you_

It was only because she decided to go back to the library to look for another old book that she used to read to her son. There wasn't much to the agenda of Rumiko beyond just looking for a nonsense poem story from over two-hundred years ago by a British man. When she was looking down at one of the lower shelves in the chamber, that was when she noticed the green light that filled up the room, catching her attention.

 _Rumiko Gaidoku,_ she heard a voice speak to her. _Rumiko Gaidoku… I see you. Time sees you._

She turned to face where she thought the light was coming from…and saw the jar with the pendants of the lost causes patron…with something green rising from within it. She wanted to run, to get out of there and tell someone, but she was paralyzed with fear of what might've occurred if she did. Her heart raced with panic, her chest tightening up with fright and her eyes widening with intensity that they could've popped out of her head.

 _Whosoever wields Time, if they prove themselves worthy enough to possess it, shall have the power of Time,_ the voice uttered again to her, _and Time…chooses you._

-x-

"Soul, can you tell us what is happening here?" Rosetta questioned her Infinity Stone as she and Shinji had to shield their eyes from the glow's intensity.

 _Time seeks a new wielder,_ her stone responded. _It seeks one that realizes that time is precious to those that have it. It suspects that the most adequate being to wield its power for the right reasons…is a young maiden that cherishes her time spent with those that matter to her heart._

 _A young maiden?_ Shinji thought as he heard Soul's voice, confused by this explanation. _Rumiko's young, but she's not… I mean, I still think of her as the same person, regardless of what happened all those years ago, but… I don't get it._

 _It is only a word, Shinji,_ he heard the Space Stone say to him. _It has many meanings, regardless of where it comes from. In this case, it just means a young woman, regardless of her status. Your friend fits the prerequisite for the stone._

Then, it started to look like Rumiko was turning her head and upper body this way and that way at a speed that made it look like she was turning into some sort of smear.

"Rumiko?" Shinji called out to her, and her body floated back to the floor where she stood on her feet, walking towards him and Rosetta, still shifting around upwards.

"…Shinji…left her…Shado…day…faith…Toya…read…age…later on…happy holidays…new…every time…miss you…never regret…came to…for you…we're gonna be…" Rumiko uttered, sounding like she was having different conversations with different people, all at the same time…until…

Standing in front of her friend, Rumiko had ceased this unusual act, now sporting a necklace with a small, green gem hanging from it, her eyes slowly fading with the green light that had once filled the room.

"Rumiko?" He asked her. "Are you…you?"

"I'm fine," she answered him, and then fell into his arms. "I saw…a lot."

He held onto her and carried her over to a nearby chair.

"Is she going to be alright, Sister Rosetta?" He asked the mother superior.

"I'm not sure," she responded. "The Time Stone is outside my area of expertise. The only person that can tell us about how it affects a chosen possessor…is the chosen possessor themselves."

Catching her breath, Rumiko sighed at what she had witnessed. It was like she was sitting in front of widescreen television set or inside of a theater, watching a series of events transpire, backwards and forwards…for a long time. And the scariest part…was how she was able to comprehend all that she witnessed without showing her sense of dread in the process. It was beautiful and terrifying.

The dawn of creation when the Big Bang occurred, the coalesce of stars and planets beyond what she learned about their solar system, the formation of other worlds with their own states of being, how some creatures evolved over time to become forms of energy while others survived for eons without the slightest change, and every single event had the one thing in common that was an undeniable truth in the universe, that all things in existence were bound together by time, not just space. While space made for a vast universe, without time, there was no telling what was going to happen wherever or whenever, regardless of the how or why. But this understanding of time came with a price of knowing what was going to happen and deciding whether or not to let it happen or try to keep it from happening however you could, and now Rumiko knew deeper in detail of the when to everything around her; she knew when people started out, when buildings were built, when towns and cities were founded, when Second Impact happened…and even things that hadn't happened yet, either due to a sort of pause in the timeline or because it would happen in another timeline. You could ask her about a past event, and she would know it.

"Rumiko," she heard Shinji say to her, "how do you feel?"

Looking up, the teenage girl found herself in the room she and her son were using in the chair, the small window nearby showing a dark sky with few stars, indicating that it was night out.

"Wha… How long was I…unresponsive?" She asked him.

"Most of the day after you got the Time Stone," he answered. "You passed out after you sat down, and then Sister Rosetta and I carried you here to lay down. You made Toya worry when he saw the stone around your neck. He asked me if it was like mine…and I told him that it was similar to the Space Stone…but it wasn't like any of the other stones. Space allows for travel…"

"But Time allows for temporal manipulation," she cut him off. "The Time Stone chose me. I'm endowed with the power to affect the flow of time itself. I know more about when than anyone else on the planet."

"Time and Space. When and where, respectively. But…are you okay?"

Rumiko nodded in the positive that she was fine…but that was in the physical sense; her mental and psychological health were…complicated now that she had the power to affect time.

 _You were only chosen no more than eight hours ago, Ms. Gaidoku,_ she heard the voice of the Time Stone say to her. _What you're feeling right now…is understandable. It is okay to not know what to do. It doesn't change the fact that you were the one chosen to wield such an existential aspect of the universe however you see fit. Nobody can order you to affect the world the way you can if you wanted just to benefit themselves. Only you can decide that. You decide…in your own time. You, Rumiko Gaidoku, are the Temporal Maiden. Your hands hold more kindness in them to hold the fabric of time as you show your kindness when you hold your son…or your best friend or even his daughter. Take rest for now. You will need your strength for the future that is yours to affect however you choose._

Grumble! Rumiko's stomach growled; she hadn't eaten anything since breakfast.

"Well," went Shinji, "everyone else has eaten dinner. Let's go get you setup for a warm meal."

"Thank you, Shinji."

They walked down the hall to the kitchen where Shinji had a plate of the vegetarian meal he had helped Sister Rosetta to prepare earlier for everyone else in the church.

"What do you think of the designation of Temporal Maiden, Shinji?" She asked as she bit a piece of celery stalk after dipping it in peanut butter.

"Temporal Maiden? It sounds like a secret identity for a woman with a special power, but wants to live a good life. But…it also sounds like the identity of a woman that lives beyond everyone…but wants to be around other people." Shinji expressed his opinion of the designation.

"That's what the Time Stone called me."

"Then…you must be a woman with a secret identity now…and you're just starting out."

"Now, why would you think me a type of superwoman when I'm just a…teenage single parent who ran away from her mother after she had her son taken away over a year ago and just got him back and will do whatever it takes not to lose him again?"

"Because in a way…you are a superwoman. People who don't wear tights, have armor, capes or can fly…don't have to be super to be heroes in someone's eyes. I mean…anyone can be a heroic figure, whether they're an honest police officer, a compassionate nurse, even a childhood friend…doing something as reassuring…as just seeing another friend after a year of absence and no real plan."

"If that's what I am, then that's what you are, too. If you hadn't shown up when you did…who knows for sure what I might've done."

But Shinji was beating around the bush because there was one thing that bothered him with Rumiko possessing an Infinity Stone: He feared for her safety. If it had just been himself and people he didn't know very much, he wouldn't have feared the possibility of anyone getting harmed, but if it's someone he did know, he'd be crushed to a degree if they got harmed. But he had no say in this matter, no matter what he felt; Rumiko was now a stonekeeper like he and Sister Rosetta were, chosen by an Infinity Stone, meaning she was meant to have it and use its power however she chose. All he could do…was hope that nothing bad would happen to her or Toya and that they'd be able to live for a long time.

"Shinji," he heard Rumiko say to him, "don't worry about me. I'm a Temporal Maiden now. I can use the Time Stone to help you and the others. Sure, I could take Toya and go elsewhere, but then I'd feel bad because I left you and Shado. So…the goal you have, the goal to use the stones to create a new world for us to live on… I'm still all for it. If you're in this, I'm in it, too."

Shinji gave a small smile.

"We'll be careful when we're out there looking for wherever or whoever has the Mind and Reality Stones, then," he told her. "I can make going wherever we want or need to get to possible…but you're the one who can literally put a stop to things if they go wrong. Yeah?"

"Totally."

Now, they only had to find two more stones in order to attempt a goal that was impossible for anyone to achieve…and then call a new world their home where they wouldn't have to worry about the people that hurt them in the past. But a new planet that was just like Earth…was going to be too big for just a pair of teens and a bunch of children. Even Shinji knew this and wanted the place to be a haven for the lost, the abandoned, the cast aside and the lonely, people that didn't want to hurt any more than they already have. The people with everything they've ever wanted could keep the original Earth they helped to maim…while the people they didn't give a damn about would get the new one when it became a reality.

To be continued…

A/N: Now Rumiko has an Infinity Stone. I bet you never saw that coming.


End file.
